Texas Architect July/Aug 2008: Regional Response

Texas Architect is the official publication of the Texas Society of Architects, each edition features recently completed projects and other editorial content largely written by AIA members in Texas. That collective participation was the basis of Texas Architect’s recognition by the national AIA with a 2010 Institute Honor for Collaborative Achievement.

Cloepfil Addresses Dallas Forum
On Booker T. Washington School
16
t e x a s
a r c h i t e c t
Allied Works Architecture designed the expansion of the
Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and
Visual Arts in the Dallas Arts District.
locations across the country, clearly demonstrate crystalline ideas in both a literal and
philosophical sense—despite his comments to
the contrary. The buildings are too carefully
executed, too beautifully made to be anything
other than self-conscious objects to be admired
and engaged with some level of awe. For all of
Cloepfil’s earnest embrace of the ideas of the
firm, the end products can be categorized as a
collection of serene and transcendent spaces,
clearly cool and aloof repositories for art. The
exception is Booker T. Washington, the one
project he illustrated that obviously embodies
all that Cloepfil strives to achieve.
The High School differs from the rest of the
work in the mysterious nature of its organization and in its dark color. Unlike the other
projects shown, Booker T. Washington has
a “green room” (the central courtyard) at its
heart, rather than landscape on its periphery.
The outdoor room is a place to make art and to
learn, a place where students can get their hands
dirty and work up a sweat. It is not a place for
the quiet contemplation of work already done.
It’s the difference between a laboratory and a
treasure chest. While his other projects felt
familiar, despite their excellence, Booker T.
Washington did not.
Cloepfil discussed the school’s more than
80-year dialogue with its site and the city, and
how that had changed over time. In his visits
to the school, he said, he was impressed by the
energy of the students and faculty in the old
facility where the environment did very little to
facilitate or support their efforts. He came to the
realization that what he was feeling and seeing
was not dependent on the building but the spirit
of the place itself, and he saw his biggest charge
as not screwing it up.
Cloepfil contends that Booker T. Washington is the philosophical reason the Dallas Arts
District exists. He characterized the rest of the
facilities in the Arts District as the crystalline
buildings to which he alluded in the beginning
of his lecture, and sees them all as the forces
that have influenced the school. Allied Works’
new building for BTW creates a protected space
to nurture the students who are learning the
lessons they need to claim those surrounding
buildings and the ideas they represent.
M i c h a e l
M a l o n e ,
7 / 8
AIA
2 0 0 8
Photos by Jeremy Bittermann, courtesy Allied Works Architecture
d a l l a s As part of the events celebrating
the opening of the Booker T. Washington High
School for the Performing and Visual Arts, the
Dallas Architectural Foundation invited Brad
Cloepfil to speak about his firm’s project located
in the Dallas Arts District. Cloepil, principal of
Allied Works in Portland, Ore., presented the
lecture on June 6 at the Dallas Museum of Art.
Cloepfil’s skills as a speaker easily communicate
the ideas and processes that inform the work of
his firm. Viewed within the context of Allied
Works’ prodigious recent output (primarily of
crisp, minimalist museums) BTW stands as
almost an anomaly—a lyrical, happy anomaly.
Cloepfil’s presentation began with an explanation of the concerns Allied Works attempts
to address and resolve in its design work. He
categorized these as issues relating to resolution, forces, occupation, editing, and domain. For
Allied Works, resolution is the contrast between
the crystalline architectural idea of the second
half of the twentieth century (characterized in
the lecture by Mies van der Rohe’s Farnsworth
House) and the actual experience of a work of
architecture. In seeking to understand the
influences that render the building or place
specific to its site, Allied Works studies its
surroundings and considers how these forces
can be manifested in the design. He explained
occupation as the way the building is given the
opportunity to occupy a specific place, and the
architect’s understanding of the discipline and
rigor with which this occupation can vary the
perception of the space. It also seeks to extend
a dialogue to the surrounding context through
mediation with other things besides the building itself. Cloepfil provided the example of art
in a museum which allows people another way
to engage the building through an intermediary. Editing deals with what Cloepfil called the
violence of intervention that building a building
does to a place. By building something you are
distinguishing things about a place. Domain
asks what a building can create for itself by
initiating a dialogue with its context.
Cloepfil illustrated each of these avenues
of investigation with a project, examples from
an impressive and consistently engaging body
of work largely completed since Allied Works
was first awarded the commission to design
the Booker T. Washington High School. For the
most part, these buildings, most set in urban